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the latest
waddle: good morning, wordpress - 10:36 a.m. , 2009-07-03 elaborate murder attempt - 2:56 p.m. , 2009-07-01 building a tractor in the basement - 10:42 a.m. , 2009-06-19 ask no questions tell just a few lies - 3:17 p.m. , 2009-06-09 my long lasting flavor really lasts long - 1:10 p.m. , 2009-06-04
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THANK YOU CRAZY PERSON NOW PLEASE RUN ALONG Is there something in particular about the elevator setting that makes crazy people want to chat with me? Do crazy people just naturally abhor elevator silence and thus cannot suppress the urge to bust out with some crazy comment? Yesterday I was in the office elevator with someone who probably knows three facts about me, with one of those being my name and another being that my daughter was adopted from China. Seriously, we are not close. I tell you that just by way of background, although really the crazy is so overwhelming that there is no need for background. She asked me how my kid was doing, and whether she was in preschool. When I replied that Nora was slacking for the summer but that in the fall she will enter her third year of preschool (and attend every single morning [half-days]! it's the big leagues!), Crazy Lady asked me, "Wow. Aren't you worried that she�ll be teased?" Well, naturally I don't want anyone harassing my peanut, ever, so I considered answering in the affirmative. But Crazy Lady did not seem to be speaking generally. There seemed to be something "else" that this woman was getting at. So, cautiously, I said "teased for what?" "For being Asian," she answered, with a crazy look at me like DUH. 1. Last I checked being Asian was not all that weird. What kind of whitebread world do you live in, anyway? 2. Although there is no way Crazy Lady could have known this, the idea of my kid's school tolerating even the slightest hint of race-based teasing is laughable. These are the people who whip up a Festival of Diversity at the drop of a (hand-knitted by Ecuadorian shepherds) hat. Seriously. 3. If the school did nothing about it, I certainly would. 4. If my memory of playground cruelty serves, kids can do WAY better than "ha ha you're Asian." 5. What is Crazy Lady proposing, exactly? That I homeschool my child on the off-chance that she might be teased by other three-year-olds? That the terrible disability of being Asian should preclude her from attending school, ever? That I should be ever-vigilant and quiz Nora each day? "So snack was hummus and crackers, you worked on cutting out shapes, and you went down the slide a lot...hey, did anyone mention that you're Asian? Because you are, BUT THAT'S OKAY WE LOVE YOU ANYWAY." I said "no" and we left it at that, but before the elevator ride was over the crazy person also managed to mention that she takes a lot of gingko biloba, and that if she misses a dose she feels really "off," and I resisted the urge to say, "oh, is that what's happening now?" But just barely. GRIPES There was some mysterious black stuff in my morning oatmeal. At first I was all tough-girl like "I am goddamned hungry and will eat it anyway" (because I am from the Dirt Won't Kill You school and used to regularly let crawling baby Nora eat Cheerios off the floor). But then the more I looked at the oatmeal's black stuff the more it looked like cigarette ash. I could not stop picturing that Quaker, no longer smiling all benign and Friendly (ha!) but instead scowling with a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, and just as he finished processing my instant brown-sugar-flavor oatmeal the inch-long ash dropped right into the cup. I know it is erroneous of me to imagine that the Quaker Oatmeal factory is staffed by a bunch of Quaker Oatmeal Guy clones in hats and knee-breeches, but WOULD THAT IT WERE SO. This week is all about the small domestic irritants. I got cocky with thinking Nora was becoming more self-supervising, and learned the hard way when she decided to stuff some small random bathroom items down the sink drain. I did laundry, transferred it all to the dryer, and then walked away without turning it on because using heat and air to dry one's clothes? Snort. That's so last year. I like to stuff my clothes inside a small, fairly airtight metal box and leave them there to fester and stew for hours. Damp and wrinkled is the new fresh and dry! Then I made a lasagna in the crockpot (no, really) and I was fairly puzzled to discover that I had a lot of vegetable stuff and a lot of cheese stuff left over. But my stupid brain went "la la la" and my stupid hand poured my stupid mouth another glass of wine, and I put the extra down the disposal and forgot all about it. Until this morning when I pulled out the crockpot to plug it in, and noticed how very low the lasagna was. Yeah, I guess I usually stick a couple of more layers on there, but not tonight! Hope everyone likes their food nice and flat! Anyway, I am taking my household fuckups as a sign that I need to get out and drink irresponsibly this weekend---luckily Harry and the Potters will be at Beat Kitchen, and dork-rock sounds like just the thing I need to get my mojo working. ---mimi smartypants spilled her goblet of fire. |
